Expert Analyst: International Politics, Middle East & Nonviolent Action
Obama Administration
Truthout August 7, 2026, by Stephen Zunes: This is a disingenuous bipartisan effort to discredit the ICC and international humanitarian law as a whole. [Transcript & 15-min. audio podcast]
Perspectives in Politics, June 26, 2026: of George Washington University Professor Marc Lynch’s excellent new book on U.S. Middle East Policy
The Progressive, June 23, 2026: [click here for audio and text]The Memorandum of Understanding signed between the United States and Iran is indeed a better deal for the Islamic Republic than the 2015 JCPOA and what could have been agreed…
Common Dreams, June 24, 2026; reposted from The Progressive[Audio and transcript] Too many congressional Democrats are demonstrating their own hypocrisy in claiming that they oppose the war while actively undermining efforts to end it.
DemocracyNow.org April 23, 2026 (14 min.)
BBC April 21, 2026: Uncertainty over US-Iran peace talks.
Truthout, April 17, 2026: Democrats share responsibility with the GOP for creating the climate that made such a war possible. Unlike the invasion of Iraq, which received the support of a sizable minority of congressional Democrats, Donald Trump’s war on…
Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies, October 31, 2023 By Stephen Zunes [source]
Video: Dec. 4 lecture at the University of San Francisco [source link is no longer available]
The Progressive September 7, 2016
Washington’s support for Yemen’s former dictatorship — and of Saudi efforts to sideline the country’s nonviolent pro-democracy movement — helped create the current crisis.
Though the United States may have taken the lead in the international diplomatic initiative against Iran’s nuclear program, the Obama administration has also taken the lead in undermining the United Nations’ efforts to promote nuclear arms control and disarmament elsewhere.
Reaching an interim nuclear deal with Iran would have been difficult enough even without hardliners in both Iran and the United States seeking to undermine them.
On October 12 Washington and Kabul agreed on a draft deal that would keep some U.S. forces in Afghanistan after 2014, but only if political and tribal leaders in Afghanistan agree to a U.S. demand that U.S. troops not be subject to Afghan
openDemocracy
Foreign military intervention would prolong the war and increase the carnage still further. But this does not mean that the US in conjunction with others, including Syrian civil society, cannot do anything to help the situation. Reply to Nader Hashemi.
In his speech before the United Nations General Assembly, President Obama made important and valid points on the issues of human rights, arms control, and global governance. But note what the president did not say.
WTOP Radio
Dr. Stephen Zunes previews the President Obama’s speech on the Syrian dilemma
KPFA
Dr. Stephen Zunes is joins Pacifica Radio Network in analyzing President Obama’s speech over potential strikes in Syria
Left Voices
Dr. Stephen Zunes talks about the possible negotiated settlement over Syria’s chemical weapons and efforts to prevent U.S. military intervention
KQED
Dr. Stephen Zunes talks with a panel that includes, David Mark, editor-in-chief of Politix, an online community focusing on national politics, and former senior editor with Politico, Robert Danin, senior fellow for Middle East and Africa studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, Steve Weber, professor of political science at UC Berkeley and author of books including “The End of Arrogance, America and the Global Competition of Ideas”, about the vote to strike Syria.